Tuesday, December 6, 2016

194. The Acropolis crowns Athens

The
crowning glory of ancient Athens is, of course an extremely rocky outcrop of about
3 hectares rising 150 metres above the centre of the city, atop of which is located the
ancient citadel known as the Acropolis of Athens. The site
contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and
historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon.

The Northern aspect of the Acropolis

But
before I climb the hill, I need to do a bit of research about the ancient site,
and a visit to the Acropolis Museum –
adjacent to the hill – is the best
place to start.

This modern museum focuses on the findings of the archaeological site of the
Acropolis, and the museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock
and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine
Greece. The museum was founded in 2003, and opened to the public on 2009.
Nearly 4,000 objects are exhibited over an area of 14,000 square metres.

King Sauromates III

of the Bosporan Kingdom

The
first museum was on the Acropolis; it was completed in 1874 and underwent a
moderate expansion in the 1950s. However, successive excavations on the
Acropolis uncovered many new artifacts which significantly exceeded its
original capacity.

An
additional motivation for the construction of a new museum was that in the
past, when Greece made requests for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from
the United Kingdom (which acquired the items in a controversial manner ) it was
suggested by some British officials that Greece had no suitable location where
they could be displayed. Creation of a gallery for the display of the Parthenon
Marbles has been key to all recent proposals for the design of this new museum.

As
construction work neared completion, the operation to move the historic
artifacts the 280-metre distance from the Acropolis rock to the new museum
started in October 2007, took four months, and required the use of three tower
cranes to move the sculptures across the distance without mishap.

Prokne and her young son Itys

whom she kills to take revenge on her husband

who dishonoured her sister ... !!!

The
collections of the museum are exhibited on three levels. On the first level there
are the findings from the slopes of the Acropolis. The long and rectangular
hall whose floor is sloping, resembles the ascension to the rock.On the same floor
there are also the artifacts and sculptures from the other Acropolis buildings
such as the Erechtheum, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaea and
findings from Roman and early Christian Athens.

Caryatids of Erechtheon

( sculptures of females taking the place of columns )

The use of glass panels on all four exterior walls of the Museum allows the natural light to flood into the galleries to illumine the artifacts as it would have seen on the ancient temple.

The
top level of the Museum sits at a different angle to the lower levels to
achieve the same orientation of the ancient temple on the Acropolis. The
spacing of the columns of the Parthenon hall is the same as that of the ancient
temple. The 48 columns in the Parthenon hall mark the outline of the ancient
temple and form a colonnade for the display of the Parthenon marbles.

The Metopes of the
Parthenon are a series of marble panels, originally 92 in number, on the
outside walls of the Parthenon, forming part of the Doric frieze. The metopes of each
side of the building had a different subject, and together with the pediments,
Ionic frieze, and the statue of Athena Parthenos contained within the
Parthenon, formed an elaborate program of sculptural decoration. Fifteen of the
metopes from the south wall were removed ( stolen ... ??? ) and are now part of the Parthenon
Marbles in the British Museum, while others have been destroyed over the centuries.

An economic decree from Athens

to their ally Methone

In
each section of the Museum there are excellent descriptions, not only of the
artifacts but also about the various “eras” of the Acropolis. Also I sat
through a very good documentary focused on the history of the Rock – so after a
couple of hours of reading and looking and listening, I came away with my head
spinning with ancient history and well prepared for my ascent to take place a
few days later.

So choosing my day carefully when Google weather told be that there would be sunshine and no wind, I set
off early for the northern entry gates which I hoped offered an easier climb ...

At
8am there was only a handful of other earlybirds. The lazy tourists were still
in their hotels globbling down their free breakfasts - and no tourist buses out
ofthe depots yet - bliss ... so we made our way past the ticket collector and up the marble path through the olive grove ...

To
the first lot of steps leading up to the entry Propylaea.

While
there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth
millennium BC, it was Pericles in the fifth century BC who coordinated the
construction of the site's most important buildings including the Parthenon,
the Propylaia, the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike. A temple to
Athena Polias, the tutelary deity of the city, was erected around 570–550 BC.

Though
it was not built as a fortified structure, this monumental gateway was a way of
controlling entry into the Acropolis. It was important that people not ritually
clean be denied access to the sanctuary and also runaway slaves and criminals
could not be permitted into the sanctuary where they could claim the protection
of the gods. The state treasury was also kept on the Acropolis, making its
security important.

Today
the massive gateway serves merely as a means of controlling the hordes of
tourists that clamber over the rock every day of the year.

But
before we can enter, we have to make way for the passing of a unit of the Presidential Guards leaving the Rock . ( Don’t know what they were doing before we arrived – maybe some sort
of ceremony raising the Greek flag …).

Construction
of the Propylaea began in 437 BC and was terminated in 432, because of the
outbreak of war between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC, and as a result, it was never completed.

The
Propylaea survived intact through the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods and during the period of the Duchy of Athens, it served as the palace of the
Acciaioli family, who ruled the duchy from 1388 to 1458. It was severely
damaged by an explosion of a powder magazine in 1656, foreshadowing the even
more grievous damage to the Parthenon from a similar cause in 1687.

Today the Propylaea
has been partly restored -and looks truly magnificent in the glow of the early morning sun ...

Once through the gateway and onto the plateau and over the rocky and extremely uneven ground the next building is the Erechtheion ...

Dating back to
421–406 BC the Erechtheum was one of several shrines originally in the area. . The temple has two
porches, one on the northwest corner borne by Ionic columns, the other, to the
southwest, supported by huge female figures or Caryatids.

The eastern part of
the temple was dedicated to Athena Polias, while the western part, serving the
cult of the archaic king Poseidon-Erechtheus, housed the altars of Hephaestus
and Voutos, brother of Erechtheus. Little is known about the original plan of
the interior which was destroyed by fire in the first century BC and has been
rebuilt several times since.

The entrance, facing east, is lined with six elegant Ionic columns.

During
the same period, a combination of sacred precincts including the temples of
Athena Polias, Poseidon, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Herse, Pandrosos and Aglauros,
with its Kore Porch (Porch of the Maidens) or Caryatids' balcony was begun.
Between the temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon, there was the Sanctuary of
Artemis Brauronia (or the Brauroneion), the goddess represented as a bear and
worshipped in the deme of Brauron ...

But
today, some 2500 years later, all that remains of those temples is just rubble
and some foundation stones.

On
the southern tip of the Acropolis a look-out perches on the edge of the rock,
hanging over the suburbs of Athens and draped in the Greek flag which can be
seen from many parts of the capital ...

and what an amazing vista ...

The
other great rock of Athens – Mount Lycabettus

which I scaled in my last blog
post …

Looking towards the Southeast to the Temple of Olympian Zeus

and beyond to the Panathenaic
Stadium …

And down to the
Theatre of Dionysus then across to the Acropolis Museum …

And
then - there she is - in all her ancient glory

The Parthenon

wowee – how amazing to be standing in the presence of such fame …

The
Parthenon is a former temple, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people
of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the
Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438 BC
although decoration of the building continued until 432 BC. It is the most
important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered the
zenith of the Doric order. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the
high points of Greek art.

The
Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy
and western civilization, and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments.
The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a programme of
selective restoration and reconstruction to ensure the stability of the
partially ruined structure.

The
Parthenon itself replaced an older temple of Athena, which historians call the
Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of
480 BC. While a sacred building dedicated to the city's patron goddess, the
Parthenon was actually used primarily as a treasury. For a time, it served as
the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In
the final decade of the sixth century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a
Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

After
the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s. On 26
September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by
Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon
and its sculptures. From 1800 to 1803, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed
some of the surviving sculptures with the alleged permission of the Ottoman
Empire. These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon
Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now
displayed. Since 1983, the Greek government has been committed to the return of
the sculptures to Greece.

A
major fire broke out in the Parthenon shortly after the middle of the third
century AD which destroyed the Parthenon's roof and much of the sanctuary's
interior. Heruli pirates are also credited with sacking Athens in 276, and
destroying most of the public buildings there, including the Parthenon. Repairs
were made in the fourth century AD. A new wooden roof overlaid with clay tiles
was installed to cover the sanctuary.

The
Parthenon survived as a temple dedicated to Athena for nearly one thousand
years until Theodosius II decreed in 435 AD that all pagan temples in the
Byzantine Empire be closed. At some point in the fifth century, Athena's great
cult image was looted by one of the emperors and taken to Constantinople, where
it was later destroyed, possibly during the siege of Constantinople during the
Fourth Crusade in 1204 AD.

The
Parthenon was converted into a Greek Orthodox Christian church in the final decade
of the sixth century AD to become the Church of the Parthenos Maria (Virgin
Mary). Christian icons were painted on the walls and many Christian
inscriptions were carved into the Parthenon's columns. These renovations
inevitably led to the removal and dispersal of some of the sculptures. Those
depicting gods were either possibly re-interpreted according to a Christian
theme, or removed and destroyed. The Parthenon became the fourth most important
Christian pilgrimage destination in the Eastern Roman Empire after
Constantinople, Ephesos, and Thessalonica.

Some
of the financial accounts for the Parthenon survive and show that the largest
single expense was transporting the stone from Mount Pentelicus, about 16
kilometres from Athens, to the Acropolis.

In
1456, Ottoman Turkish forces invaded Athens and laid siege to a Florentine army
defending the Acropolis until June 1458, when it surrendered to the Turks. The
Turks may have briefly restored the Parthenon to the Greek Orthodox Christians
for continued use as a church. Some time before the close of the fifteenth
century, the Parthenon became a mosque. Despite the alterations accompanying
the Parthenon's conversion into a church and subsequently a mosque, its
structure had remained basically intact.

In
1687, the Parthenon was extensively damaged in the greatest catastrophe to
befall it in its long history. As part of the Great Turkish War (1683-1699),
the Venetians sent an expedition to attack Athens and capture the Acropolis.
The Ottoman Turks fortified the Acropolis and used the Parthenon as a gunpowder
magazine – despite having been forewarned of the dangers of this use by the
1656 explosion that severely damaged the Propylaea – and as a shelter for
members of the local Turkish community. On 26 September a Venetian mortar
round, fired from the Hill of Philopappus, blew up the magazine, and the building
was partly destroyed. The explosion blew out the building's central portion and
caused many of the walls to crumble into rubble.

Only
a few of the sculptures remain in situ; most of the surviving sculptures are
today ( controversially ) in the British Museum in London as the Elgin Marbles,
and in the Athens Acropolis Museum, but a few pieces are also in the Louvre, and
museums in Rome, Vienna and Palermo.

The
Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy
and western civilization, and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments.

In
1975, the Greek government began a concerted effort to restore the Parthenon
and other Acropolis structures. After some delay, a Committee for the
Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments was established in 1983. The project
has attracted funding and technical assistance from the European Union. An
archaeological committee thoroughly documented every artifact remaining on the
site, and architects assisted with computer models to determine their original
locations. Particularly important and fragile sculptures were transferred to
the Acropolis Museum. That restoration continues today – and probably for many
decades to come. Maybe one day this majestic building will be returned to its
former glory.

Below the walls of the Acropolis is the Theatre
of Herodes Atticus

2000
years after it was built, it is still used today for concerts and plays …

After
nearly two hours wandering the Rock with only a handful of fellow-tourists, and
with an almost flat battery in my camera, it’s time to bid farewell to the gods
and head off in search of caffeine ... and just in time too ...

…
it must be close to 10am ‘cause here come the tour groups …

Definitely
time to leave …

Descending
down the steep path and looking back up at this massive architectural wonder,
it’s over-whelming to consider the labour and the huge quantity of material that has gone
into its construction.